GentleSoulGnome July 2020 Garden Update

Our garden grew significantly over the last few months despite the lack of maintenance as I battled the all day pregnancy sickness and gardening aversion. I was so relieved when the pregnancy symptoms finally subsided and I can return to the garden. Since then I had managed to complete a few priority maintenance in smaller quantities and shorter time as tiredness seems to be the major hurdle at the moment.

My first priority was to clean up the weeds growing at the front garden because the Tulips and Daffodils had started to grow new shoots. I wanted to clear the area of weeds to give them lots of growing space and minimal nutrition competitor as possibly can. 

Asahi Tulips

Daffodils Tete-a-tete

The Cos Lettuces and Strawberries that I planted at the front garden seemed to thrive and we had since harvested a few of the lettuce leaves.

I have been waiting for the Broccoli seedpods to mature to collect their seeds, but they're taking so long. So I let them be for the time being and besides they are still sprouting, so we've been harvesting them as well. I left quite a few of the yellow flowers for the bees. They love them, I thought I share a little bit happiness with them.

As for the back garden, the Snow Peas and Shelling Peas had grew so tall and a few flowers had blossomed. So, we're hoping it won't be too much longer until we get some harvest.

The leafy vegetables are taking so long to grow from seedlings. Next year I will try continual planting as growing the plants from seedlings are too slow when the temperature dropped. Some of the Kale are looking promising though, I hope I can harvest some soon.

The root vegetables in the third garden bed seemed to be doing well as well. The White and Purple Garlic are looking good. I never successfully grew garlic before, so fingers crossed they will produce this time.

I also never managed to get a single harvest of radish and these ones are not looking promising either. The leaves are bright green and bushy, but I can't see any bulb growing underneath it.

We moved our Lemon tree from the half wine barrel to the ground a few months ago. They survive the move but only time will tell if they will produce better in the new spot. The new spot has more sun exposure which I hope will be more suitable for the tree.

Some more strawberries plants underneath the Lemon tree. They were also transplanted from half wine barrel and survived the move. Some of the plants are showing flowers, so hopefully we have lots more strawberries this year.

I absolutely love our Bay Tree. It obviously survived the big move from Sydney to Melbourne a couple years ago. The tree has reached new height and growing lots of new branches and good looking leaves.

Lastly, we planted 4 bags of potatoes in grow bags. We keep adding more soil as the plants shoot up. It's very exciting indeed, they seem to be growing taller and taller everyday.

Sunflower Seeds Harvest and Cuttings

Some of the early planted sunflowers are ready for harvest and I had some spare time this evening to check and collect them. These flowers had brought joy to myself and also passer-bys as I noticed quite a few people stopped to observe and admire the flowers when they walked pass. It's really awesome to see others enjoying these flowers as much as I do. 

I took a few cuttings of the Bay tree, Lavender and Chrysanthemum as well:

These sunflowers are the ones planted at the backyard, so, not visible to passer-bys. They are still at the peak of their flowering period:

Managed to catch the dramatic ray of evening sun there. 

One solitary bee is still very busy working collecting nectar from dahlia bloom:

Bay tree cuttings:

They have since been trimmed down and the leaves are drying to be used in cooking.

The Lavender and Chrysanthemum cuttings:

The plants interstate move Part 2 – The Trees

I’ve been growing a few trees on my apartment balcony in the last 3-4 years and I brought them along with me interstate.

The Curry Tree was struggling really badly, to the point that all its leaves dropped.

To my delight, they grew new branches and new leaves within a few weeks.

It had even flowered.

First photo - the struggling Curry Tree, leaves drooping and eventually dropped; Second photo - newly emerged leaves; Third photo - Fresh new leaves, finally growing, and even flowering; I can’t wait for this to grow bigger so I can start using the leaves again.

The Dragonfruit Tree was fine, it’s like nothing happened to it. I just put them on the ground, and new stems are growing out of them.

  

First photo - Right after transplanting; Second photo - Taken a few weeks after transplant, new branches appeared. They’re a bit of a slow grower, don’t they?

The Bay Tree is I think still adjusting, as how the Curry Tree was, the Bay Tree dropped all of its leaves at one stage, but, look now, they’re doing great.

First Photo - Right after transplant, it dropped all its leaves after that; Second photo - Taken 4 months after, in Feb 2017, recovered, after quite a long period.

Just recently, in April, they actually have more leaves than when they were on the balcony.

I still have a lot of store bought dried bay leaves that I haven’t used up. So, I’ll let this grow a bit more before I start picking fresh bay leaves.

The new kids on the block

We bought new fruit trees to be planted on these 3 half wine barrels.

There are Mandarin, Pomegranate, and Lemon Lime Trees from the Citrus Men.

They have been growing quite nicely in the last few months.

Mandarin Pipsqueak

Angel Red Pomegranate

Citrus Splitzer, Lemon and Lime Grafted

This will be our first time owning citrus trees, so we will have to research and learn how to maintain them.

We also managed to source from Green Harvest, Tamarind, Betel, Pandan, and Sambung Nyawa (Life Extender) Trees/Bushes.

All have been growing at a healthy rate.

 

First Photo - Young Tamarind; Second Photo - Betel

First Photo - Pandan; Second Photo - Sambung Nyawa (Life Extender)

The Tamarind is still in a pot, as I think they’re going to be quite a large tree when planted on the ground, so I still am not sure what the plan is in the future.

And we’ve been shopping at Daleys Nursery for more exotic plants. We got Mango, Chinese Keys and Javanese Ginger.

 Mango Tree, and I planted a few Takinogawa Burdock seeds around the Mango (from The Seed Collection)

Mix of Chinese Keys (Temu Kunci) and Javanese Ginger